JAPAN

JAPAN

Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, April 17: Japan and Italy are said to be politically much alike.

Among the similarities are that the two countries’ respective prime ministers tend to come and go in rapid succession, and that corruption is rife in the parties in power. The fact that the reins of government have remained in the hands of a conservative party — the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan and the former Christian Democracy in Italy — for the majority of the postwar period is the most striking similarity.

This week’s snap general election in Italy resulted in the first change of government in two years. The center-right alliance won, and Silvio Berlusconi, 71, will again take office as prime minister — for his third term, following two years in opposition.

Here, people tend to believe that five changes of government in less than 20 years would spark great political confusion. Italian voters, however, don’t seem to be seriously bothered by that idea.

‘Political metabolism’

Obviously, the Italian people must realize that voting in a new administration won’t immediately fix their economic woes. Still, when Italian politics becomes bogged down, people get to vote in general elections to make their views known. This makes for a healthy “political metabolism,” and there is no question this system is firmly in place in Italy.

For years, critics have been saying the LDP’s “serviceable life” has expired. Yet, there has been little political change in this country, if any. We feel a bit envious of Italy, where voters can immediately oust the party in power whenever they need to get out of a rut.

BRITAIN

The London Times, April 23: It was hardly surprising that Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State, scolded former President Carter yesterday for meeting leaders of Hamas. Insofar as the U.S. has a Middle East peace strategy, it hinges on isolating Hamas rather than engaging it, and with good reason: Hamas has still not explicitly accepted Israel’s right to exist. Far from renouncing violence, it seized control of Gaza last year and continues to terrorize Israelis with rockets and attempted suicide bombings. And it is so fractured that no single leader can reliably speak for all its members. Yet Mr. Carter’s seven hours of meetings in Damascus were significant.

Rice’s reaction

Afterwards, in a statement agreed by all concerned, he said that under certain conditions Hamas “would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbour next door in peace.” In public, Dr. Rice had no option but to dismiss this as empty rhetoric. In private, she should take note.

Mr. Carter may seem naive for an 83-year-old, but he is right that the peace process is “not working.” New approaches are needed urgently. Initiatives like Mr. Carter’s are, likewise, important. They commit the U.S. to nothing.

Still less do they legitimize acts of terror by Hamas. But they give valuable insights into Hamas thinking, which for good or ill will determine the fate of the formal peace process. For its own part, Hamas should seize this moment to call a unilateral ceasefire and release its three Israeli prisoners. That might earn it a hearing from more powerful figures than the peanut farmer from Plains, Ga.

MALAYSIA

The New Straits Times, Wilayah Persekutuan, April 23: April 22, 1970, was the first “World Earth Day,” an educational gimmick thought up by a United States senator as a “teach-in,” in the quaint terminology of the hippie era then ending, to spread environmental awareness.

When 20 million people involved themselves in that event, it was clear Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin had struck a chord among the turned-on, tuned-in youth of the world at that time.

Ever since, Earth Day has been observed on that date every year; its global agenda changing to suit changing exigencies, from the denuclearisation priorities of the 1970s through the ozone hole panic of the 1980s and species-depletion concerns of the 1990s, to the present alarm over global warming, climate change, food crisis and rising sea levels.

Indeed, it would seem the 38 Earth Days since the first have marked the steady deterioration of the planetary environment in defiance of the exponentially rising environmental awareness of the world’s peoples and nations.

Educating common people

If this were but a single day’s remembrance, such detractors would be right. Seen as part of the whole, however, Earth Day has certainly helped raise awareness and educate common people on how to live their lives in accordance with sound environmental practices.

The saving of power and water, the restoration of forests and preservation of watersheds, the reduction of waste and its thoughtful disposal, are all standard citizens’ procedure today in a way they were not a generation ago.

If not for such commemorations as World Earth Day adding to the constant global outreach and education on caring for the Earth and all upon it, the planet’s situation could be much more dire, and environmental decline more devastating.